"BAG AND BAGGAGE."

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXIII, Issue 8406, 7 November 1912, Page 4

"BAG AND BAGGAGE."

Latest advices with regard to the war in the. Balkans indicate that Turkey cannot rely upon the European Concert to;.save her; from disintegration. She. must'treat with the : Allies,; and these, from all appearance,; will only treat under the walls of Cpnstari-. tinople—perhai>s inside them. It is interesting at this juncture to recall the impassioned appeal of Gladstone thirty-six years ago. In his celebrated pamphlet on the Bulgarian atrocities he wrote : — ■ .'. ■

An old servant of tho Crown and State, I entreat my countrymen, upon whom far more than perhaps any other people of Europe it depends, to require and to insist that our Government, which has been working in on© direction, sholl work in the other, and shall apply all, its vigour to concur with ,the other States of Europe in obtaining the extinction of the Turkish executive power in Bulgaria. Let the Turks now carry away their abuses in the only possible'manner,--namely, by carrying off themselves. Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their _ Bimbashis and their Yuzbashis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one 'and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned.

Equally as interesting as the "bag and baggage" extract is the passage from an eloquent speech delivered in the House of Commons,'in which Gladstone predicted the downfall of Turkish domination and misrule .in the Balkans. In .closing his speech the Grand' Old Man appealed from the tradition of British policy towards Turkey to " an established tradition, older, nobler- far '?—tffe tradition that taught Britons to seek the promotion of their interests "in obeying the dictates of honour and justice " ; and he added : —

I, believe that the knell of Turkish tyranny in these provinces has sounded. So far as human,eyes can judge, it .is about to be destroyed. The destruction may not come in the way or. by the means we.would choose; but come from, what hands it may, I am persuaded that it will be accepted as a boon by Christendom and by the world. ' . . ■ • '• ' .. . :■; ...

But the "knell" had not sounded; it may not sound even now;, but just as the Itusso-Turkish war resulted in the liberation of. Bulgaria from the evils of misrule, so will the present campaign bestow an equal blessing on Macedonia and Albania. And, though the final downfall of Turkey may be delayed for a decade or more, it seems certain that each successive assault upon her will further weaken her, and that within a reasonable time she.will, be driven " bag. and baggage " out ,of those fair regions which she has so. long desolated. : ' • -